


Frivolity

by fishsoo



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, EXO - Freeform, Gen, In fact even the chankai is implied, Mental Illness, Psychology, Schizophrenia, Very Implied, kpop, very confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:31:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishsoo/pseuds/fishsoo
Summary: Jongin through the months, and no one beside him.





	1. January

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been a long time since I've been on here. 
> 
> All I'd like to say (for now) is that I'm trying something new with this story and that the chapters may be really short but they are formatted to be like that. Please don't be put off by it! Or if you are, leave a comment for me, I'll consider changing it if I find that the AO3 formatting does indeed work better~
> 
> Alright, that's all from me. Constructive criticism is very welcome, very demanded in fact! I hope you enjoy this story. Thank you so much for checking it out and giving me a chance!

Jongin's cheeks conflagrate in white. When he smiles, it's not his lips but their pocket corners, untouched by the sun, that smile for him. The daylight is a muted scream burning across his face and he thinks of a rough palm warm against his skin, soothing the shadows away from his eyes.

He leans into the window, fluffy hair brushing up against the glass. January goes by just like that- quiet, demure, unassuming under the sunshine.


	2. February

Someone comes to visit when February rolls around. But he stays outside, shaking his head when Jongin moves to unlatch the window.

"You won't come in?" Jongin mouths slowly. They know each other . 

"No," The boy mouths back, and points to the sky. Jongin understands. 

His favourite thing about February is how he feels warm under the sun even if the snow is cold- and he'd like to enjoy it a little longer.


	3. March

Grass peeks out on the pavements in March. Jongin slides the window open and grins as his friend swings in, long arms chock full of snacks and videogames. They don't waste time hugging- hugging is for people with lots of time- and leap straight into loud boisterous chatter, tripping and tumbling all the way to the bed, to the kitchen. Then they trip back up the stairs and over the little pieces of glass from the broken cabinet , setting the fizzy drinks on the floor to watch the effervescence bubble away, like the bits of their wistful missing.

"Where have you been? You've been gone a long time." 

Chanyeol loves travelling. He talks a lot. Jongin doesn't hear their videogame over the sound of Chanyeol's voice.


	4. April

They hold sleepovers in April. The adults don't mind; to them, Chanyeol goes home and sleeps alone. They stack two columns of books and spread two blankets on the floor and drag a thin bedding over their makeshift tent frame (it's always orange so they can pretend that the orange light is from a bonfire). And underneath their bonfire bedding, they sit knee to knee, Jongin's table lamp between their feet. Their words wind and crouch around crooked fingertips, carefully picked and returned, like a transaction of secrets, because they can't have anyone finding out, no- you see, nobody knows that Jongin's here, too. 

Then again, nobody ever knows when Jongin's home. He's home, but his mother still looks out the window , as if waiting for him to come home. She looks in his direction but when he tries to search her eyes he can't find them. When he comes home from school, the living room is deserted, and when he calls to ask if there's dinner nobody answers. The food he eats is not tasty, only cold, and maybe he could have warmed it up so the flavours can bloom but eating hot food is like living in a dream- and Jongin doesn't want dreams, he wants reality. 

Nobody ever knows when Jongin is home. But he thanks Chanyeol anyway, for making it feel like someone will find out.

 

(It's warm inside the tent. Jongin wants to know if his friend's hands are the same, but it's hard to tell when he's touching so little of it. Nonetheless, they are touching, and Jongin sees the touch registers on Chanyeol's fingertips, watches as it turns into impulses that crawl up his wrist and run along the length of his wiry arm and explode at the nerve endings in his brain.)


	5. May

In May, they visit a sleepy city. 

"Yah, little fool," Chanyeol says, and smooths bony fingers over flaking purple knuckles. "You've never been to Sokcho, right?" 

Jongin shakes his head. 

It's midnight. The telly blares in the background, neon pink shouting into dead civilisation, deaf to the aluminium bags crumpled on the floor. They're turned away from each other, a furious game of Mario Kart betraying the serenity pooled comfortably between their heads. "Then we'll go there tomorrow. Let's sleep early and get up early and take the train to Gangneun station." 

Jongin remembers the shapeless weight sitting in his stomach. He'd heard that the Sundae there is special. 

"Sure," he says, and hoots in triumph as Chanyeol cries yet again in defeat. 

 

The next day, they go to Sokcho. They wake at 4am to catch the train to Gangneun station and take an hour's bus ride to the city. There, they chase each other on empty beaches and eat Sundae until they're green. The Sundae is hot, and Jongin feels like he's living in a dream, but Chanyeol is beside him and holding his hand and tasting the Sundae with him- and for the first time, as his touch explodes in Chanyeol's head, flavour blossoms in Jongin's mouth.

 

In Sokcho, Sundae is not made with pork intestines- they're made with squid instead. Noodles and blood sausage and vegetables and spices stuffed into a squid, sliced into rings, covered in egg yolk and fried with lots of love. 

 

It's delicious.


	6. June

When the family goes to the countryside for summer, Jongin doesn't follow.

They don't let him know that they're going. Jongin wakes up that morning to the sound of pottering feet and rustling bags and scratchy whispers of "Hush, hush, quickly, we must go." He watches from the window as they load their luggage into the car and drive off, and it's funny how they were so secretive before because there was no need to be- they never look back. 

(He can't follow. They know.) 

All of a sudden, as he stares at the settling dust on the driveway, it feels as though something's been offset- as though the heavy weight of a car and five people was the anchor that kept the balance in this household devoid of love. 

 

He misses grandma and grandpa. How are they doing, all alone in the countryside? Do they still remember Jongin from so many years ago, even after he's stopped existing? If he were real, maybe they'd feel the same offset in the car, in the backseat that only sat three children, or around the round dinner table meant for seven. Before he disappeared, there were always eight people around it. Not anymore. Are they comfortable now? 

June is a lonely month because Jongin isn't comfortable. Not on his carpet littered with glass, not on his bed, not on the windowsill, not in Chanyeol's arms. 

 

He misses grandma and grandpa. They used to ask about him.


	7. July

Jongin runs away in the morning. Chanyeol finds him huddled between bushes and a big oak tree. July is spent like this, hiding away in little corners, bringing home aching knees and sore backs. 

"I'm not real," Jongin says, behind the cover of his twined fingers. "Yeollie, I'm sad because I'm not real."

"Don't spout nonsense," Chanyeol says. "You're every bit as real as me." He peels Jongin's fingers from their cage and presses their palms tightly together. The touch registers, travels up their arms and shoulders and neck, and explodes at the nerve endings in their head.

But Jongin takes his hand away and curls it into his collar. "You are the only one that thinks that. I'm only real to you." 

Because how can he be real if nobody misses him, even though he's stopped going out, stopped going to school? How can he be real when every taste he knows comes from Chanyeol, every sensation he remembers is delivered by Chanyeol, when not even his own family members see him at home? Whatever Jongin eats, Chanyeol has to eat it first before he can taste it; when they touch, it has to be Chanyeol that initiates it for it to register. The Sundae in the Sokcho of May suddenly feels like poison writhing around in his gut. Jongin knows now why he wakes precisely 20 minutes before Chanyeol knocks at his window and falls asleep 20 minutes after Chanyeol closes his eyes- because they live 20 minutes apart, and Chanyeol takes 20 minutes to fall asleep. 

"Ah, you'd say that to me? You'd say that to me, who has been your friend for so long? Are you saying that I've made friends with someone who isn't real?" Long arms wrap around him in a hug, and he knows it's meant to be reassuring, but all he feels like doing is crying. 

Jongin doesn't hug back this time. He doesn't say it but his friend gets it, probably, because they truly have been friends for such a long time- he doesn't remember how they've been friends. 

Chanyeol had always been just... there. 

There... 

Maybe they've never needed to meet each other. Because Chanyeol had always been there. 

 

In July, Jongin cries. And for the first time, Chanyeol doesn't know why.


	8. August

August is when the thunderstorms are loudest. 

The sky empties itself over the willing land. It conjures winds that whip at tall trees and tear leaves from their branches, howling with the rolling thunder that mumbles deep in the pit of angry black clouds, too frightened to break the silver lining. The rain screams against his window and segues into weak ruby trails, black in the summer dark, weeping from Chanyeol's face. He is on the ground, Jongin's fist on his collar, porcelain skin marred with cracks and fissures.

People seldom remember the uglier side of summer. 

His knuckles are white enough that the bones break the skin, whiter than the lightning that pierces the sky. Jongin snarls, angrier and angrier as the purple fades, signatories in acknowledgement of his pain dissipating into thin air. Pain keeps Jongin alive. Pain helps Jongin think that he is real- he is alive- because there is flesh, that belongs to him, that someone had hurt. And now, even that evidence is fading away.

"Don't you see?" He seethes, and the lightning cracks one, twice, skin breaks, bone splinters. Chanyeol's eyes are wide and they capture the storm so perfectly in the way Jongin wishes his could too. "People don't become real just by repeating narratives. Why do you keep telling me to 'believe I am real'? I'm telling you now- it doesn't work!" He bangs their foreheads together, and chokes back a sob when not even the impact registers. "See?" He cries. "I'm headbutting you, but I can't feel anything. I can't even feel anything on my own.

Strong hands pull him away only to wrap around his shoulders. Touch. Register. Run, wiry arm, explode. "Ah... but you made a cut on my cheek, see?" A strong hand wraps around his trembling hand and brings it up to touch the bleeding wound. Invites it to drag at the tender skin underneath and tear it open more. As more pearls fall threaded on a string, Chanyeol smiles. "Only real people can do this, yeah? Only real people can make others bleed." 

Chanyeol, Chanyeol, what a kind soul. Who does this for their friend after having such a big fight? But Jongin is not real- his corporeal body isn't real, and neither are his processors for human sentiment and kindness. 

Their gazes meet. Jongin looks straight up at his friend, face schooled into calm. 

"You conjured it out of your pity."

Everyone is afraid of thunder, but nobody knows how frightened the thunder is of everyone else. It doesn't dare beat people down like the rain or whip people like the wind or stab things like the lightning, so it hides in the centre of the storm cloud and mutters to itself to calm down, and cries when everything gets too loud.

 

August is a frightening month, because Jongin is cold and scared and oh, oh, Chanyeol's gone away.


	9. September

Jongin forgets September. Time passed without Chanyeol experiencing it cannot be real, and Chanyeol isn't here. 

Jongin wants to apologise.


	10. October

They meet in October at the very end of a train platform.

"Stop doing that," a deep voice chides. Jongin knows it, but he asks anyway, a hand on the side of his neck. 

"Doing what?"

"That," Chanyeol says, frowning. "Cracking your neck. You know it's bad for you... What'll happen if you break your neck one day, hm?" 

To that, Jongin only shrugs. He's honest now. He's bitter- his hesitation and uncertainty and consideration had long since dissolved in the acid of his resentment. "Why do you care? Nothing will happen." His eyes find the mosaic tile, watching the lines climb each other until they drop off the ledge into gravel and train track. "I can't die." 

'm not real.

He should have expected this, really, because Chanyeol has always accommodated him- has always listened to him whine and throw his life around like a joke- and perhaps this is why Jongin had deluded himself into thinking that patience was what his friend was moulded of. But as the horn blares and the breathe is wrenched from his throat Jongin still cannot help but be shocked, even as the colour drains from his skin and his neck is locked in breaking point. 

 

ah... this time, Chanyeol gets angry first. 

 

Screams ripple throughout the station, but Jongin cannot hear them over the sound of blood rushing to his ears. His wrists fly to the arms caged around his head, strong arms that trembled with the intent to snap his neck- and maybe Jongin should have listened, should have sought him out and apologised in the last month, but it's too late now. He can't breathe. He feels the pressure. It's on the wrong place. 

"You can't die?" Chanyeol seethes. The train station swims around him, a whirl of colours and blurring spots and hecan'tbreathehecan'tbreathehecan'tbreathe. "You aren't real, huh? You're just a subset of me- your very existence is dependent on me, isn't that right? So you won't die unless I die first- is that what you're saying?" A hysterical laugh rips out of his throat and it's so loud so strange so not-Chanyeol, grating against every fibre that knew his friend Chanyeol- who are you? "Since you seem to love the idea of breaking your neck so much- come now, little fool! I'll let you break it in the most satisfying, most thorough way possible!" 

This time, Jongin hears the screams. He drops and flies, like the lines on the mosaic tiles, and sees the train headlights, white and bright.

 

White as rain sheets, white as lightning, white as the bone that cut the skin on his knuckles. 

 

Jongin wakes up alone in a white room.


	11. November

November passes.


	12. December

December passes.

Chanyeol doesn't come.


	13. Again

A long time ago, they'd stood on top of a grassy hill that overlooked the sprawling cityscape. It had been night time, and the sky was so clear. They'd run out without coats or jackets or socks riding on adrenaline, and replacing the warmth of cotton garments with the tapestry of stars poured down their backs and etched themselves deep into their skin. There was the hill, the night sky, the city, and then, there was them. 

"We cease to exist," Chanyeol had said, holding Jongin's hand. "Someday we'll be long forgotten, but that doesn't mean we were never standing here together."

 

Jongin's come back to the hill now. It's daylight, and though the sun is high up in the sky the air is still frigid. He remembers the exact spot where they stood, beside a fallen bough where a really cute mushroom lived, but there's nothing here that reminds him of Chanyeol. 

He looks down at the grass, and finds himself displeased. Chanyeol has not ceased to exist... yet the grass doesn't remember him. Maybe when Jongin dies, he'll bury his heart here in this grass, so his heart can remember its stead. This is Chanyeol's favourite spot. The grass may not remember, but Jongin always will. 

He fights the chill that seizes his body and sits down on the grass. He's wearing tracks and a thick pullover, but it's still unreasonably cold under his thighs. "Chanyeol," he begins, to the city below. "Chanyeollie, come back..." 

His family still doesn't see him when he's at home. His classmates still don't miss him at school. He's real to no one else but Chanyeol, but he supposes, at least, he's a little bit real. 

"Yeollie," he whimpers, and he grows colder, ever colder. "Yeollie, you're the only one who remembered me. You're the only one who thought that I was real. So please don't forget me, okay? If you do, I'll really stop existing..." A brittle smile slowly crawls across his face. "I'm real, Chanyeol..." 

So please, come back to me. You can come back to me now. 

 

It is January again, and Jongin's cheeks conflagrate in white. As he smiles, it's not his lips but their pocket corners, untouched by the sun, that smile for him. The daylight is a muted scream burning across his face and he thinks of a rough palm warm against his skin, soothing the shadows away from his eyes.

So he sits under the sunshine until he falls asleep, until Chanyeol comes back and collects him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you for reading all the way here! 
> 
> What do you think are Jongin and Chanyeol's circumstances? :D


End file.
